An International Monetary Fund (IMF) working paper released this month asks: Is the Canadian Housing Market Overvalued? The study concludes that house prices in Alberta and British Columbia are now only 8% overvalued while house prices in Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan are close to equilibrium (as of end of the second ...

I'm attending the International Economic Forum of the Americas in Montreal this week (that's a mouthful). So far, not many surprises, as policymakers and think-tank thinkers gather to discuss what the heck's going on in the global economy and what should be done about it.

The long-held suspicion that China has been hoarding gold was confirmed today and sent the price of bullion up. Reuters news agency confirmed that China’s head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said the country’s gold reserve had jumped to 1,454 tonnes from 600 tonnes in 2003, a ...

Did I say the G20 governments were going to give $500 billion to the IMF? Make that more than $1 trillion. The meeting has wrapped up and results are in — no to protectionism, yes to more stimulus and tighter regulation.

So the G20 has turned out to be a bit more than just handshakes and gift giving (you saw that Obama gave the Queen an iPod, right?). It wasn't clear what the results of this grand gathering of world leaders would be — there have been times where nothing meaningful ...

When the G20 meet in London on April 2—a “make or break event” according to George Soros—the sale of a portion of the International Monetary Fund’s gold holdings will be on the agenda, according to Reuters.  Leaders will contemplate using proceeds from the gold sales to double funding to poor ...

An IMF Working Paper released in September sheds some light on banking crises. In Systemic Banking Crises: A New Database, authors Luc Laeven and Fabien Valencia present a comprehensive data base on the banking crises that have occurred around the world in recent decades.

Could the stocks of U.S. exporters be the next asset class to invest in -- as the typically delayed impact of falling real exchange rates is felt? The U.S. dollar has depreciated approximately 25% in real terms (exchange rates adjusted for inflation) since early 2002. That would seem to be ...

In the Nov. 5, 2007 Briefcase we wrote about how Finance Minister Jim Flaherty vowed to create a national securities regulator despite the fact a motion to oppose that plan was unanimously passed by Quebec’s National Assembly in mid October. Well, calls for a national securities regulator were reiterated in ...